There are plenty of “musical” birthdays that I could have tied into Tune Tuesday today. Billy Eckstine (1914), Jerry Vale (1931), Steve Lawrence (1935), Toby Keith (1961) and Joan Osborne (1962) were all born on this day. However, I decided not to pick any of them.
Instead, I wanted to feature one of the early influencers of Rock and Roll. As a matter of fact, he is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His music would not be considered Rock and Roll, but his “jump blues” and “rhythm and blues” sound certainly influenced many of those rock pioneers. I am talking about the amazing Louis Jordan.
Louis Jordan was born on this day in 1908. He was a saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Among his nicknames were “The King of the Jukebox,” “The Father of Rhythm and Blues,” and “The Grandfather of Rock and Roll.”
According to Wiki, “Jordan began his career in big band swing jazz in the 1930s.” He came to the public’s attention while he played in Chick Webb’s hard swinging band. As his career continued, he became better known as an “innovative popularizer of jump blues—a swinging, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of jazz, blues, and boogie-woogie. Typically performed by smaller bands consisting of five or six players, jump music “featured shouted, highly syncopated vocals and earthy, comedic lyrics on contemporary urban themes. It strongly emphasized the rhythm section of piano, bass and drums; after the mid-1940s, this mix was often augmented by electric guitar.”
Louis Jordan, ca. 1950.
From 1942 to 1951, Jordan had 59 songs that charted! On the R&B charts, of those 59 songs the lowest charting song rose to #14. According to Joel Whitburn’s analysis of the Billboard magazine charts, Jordan ranks fifth among the most successful musicians of the period 1942–1995!
I’m staring at a list of his songs and it is hard to choose just one to feature. Memorable songs from Louis include: Five Guys Named Moe, Let the Good Times Roll, Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby, Knock Me a Kiss, Beware, Caldonia, Open the Door Richard, and G.I. Jive. His songs were even referenced in cartoons. One example is Tom the Cat singing Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby in a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Another is from a Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon where Sam is banging on a door and says, “Open the door!” He pauses, breaks the fourth wall by looking at the viewer and says, “Notice I didn’t say, ‘Richard?'”
Louis Jordan and His Tympani Five
Here are a couple of my top Louis Jordan songs. First, a little boogie-woogie with Choo Choo Ch’Boogie:
My buddy used the chorus of this song as his answering machine outgoing message. There Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens:
My best friend, Jeff, and I always laugh at this next one. Give it a listen all the way through once, and then go back and listen to it again and focus on the vocals by the Tympany Five in the back ground. Here is Beans and Cornbread:
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame say that my final Louis Jordan pick is an “early example of rap.” I can totally see where they might thing that. It is one of those great “story” songs. From 1950, here is a Saturday Night Fish Fry:
Welcome back to The Music of My Life. I began this feature last May on my birthday. Over the past 11 months, I have featured 10 songs from every year of my life. The songs featured were released in that week’s particular year. It may have been a bigger hit the following year, but I decided to stick with the rules I had put in place.
Like last week, this week I will be focusing on two years because I couldn’t really come up with 10 songs from each year. As I went through the songs from the more current years, I found that the lyrics were just to raunchy, or I found myself looking at songs I disliked or had never heard of. Every once in a while, I’d come across a song or two, but it has become very difficult.
So today, let’s tackle two years 2018 and 2019. In 2018, life began to change for me. I had found my soul mate and we got married. In 2019, we found out we were expecting our daughter. Life began to get better and better.
2018
I was back at the country station in 2018. Honestly, I was not really liking the whole “Bro Country” scene. I felt that the format was steering too far away from its roots. I never understood why rap would need to be in a country song.
Florida Georgia Line was a duo made up of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. They came on the scene in 2013 and had matured by 2018. This song came after each of them had gotten married. Their writing became deeper, yet simpler.
Simple is a song that I can relate to. It hit me when I was playing it on the air because of my new found love.
Simple
Down to the Honky Tonk is yet another country song from my days at the station. This one stuck with me every time I played it and for days after. Apparently, that was the intention. Jake Owen chose to record the tune as he suspected it was one that would easily get stuck in listeners’ heads.
“It’s a special kinda song. I think when people hear that song, it’s one of those that’s just like an earworm,” he said. “It’s something that connects, and I feel like in a world of a lot of music and art and ways to distract us and our attention, it’s super-important if you’re gonna put out any sort of content, that it’s content that grabs people’s attention.”
Personally, I liked the words and word play in the song. I think the chorus of the song fits me at a particular time in my life. I spent a lot of time in the bars in my 30’s.
I might not end up in the Hall of Fame With a star on the sidewalk with my name Or a statue in my hometown when I’m gone Nobody gonna name their babies after me I might not go down in history But I’ll go down to the honkytonk
Who’d want a statue of me anyway?
Down To The Honky Tonk
I never saw the remake of A Star is Born and I don’t have a desire to do so. However, I remember playing Shallow on the Adult Contemporary station and thinking that it sounded “out of place,” but in a good way.
(From songfacts.com) This dramatic duet features Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper (Who knew he could sing?). Gaga plays the rising star Ally, and Cooper the established musician Jackson Maine, who becomes her mentor and lover. Gaga explained that the song serves a crucial moment in the film. She told Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 Radio show: “It’s two people talking to each other about the need and the drive to dive into the deep end and stay away from the shallow area.”
The song was something special as it won many awards: It won the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song From A Motion Picture; It won the Grammy Award for Best Pop/Duo Group Performance at the 2019 ceremony; and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Shallow
Did you ever see a video that leaves you wondering just what the heck it was all about? My buddy is always sending me crazy videos and stuff, so when he sent this I didn’t know what to expect. I watched this and really couldn’t understand a thing I was watching. It is basically everyone doing this weird walk while moving their arms in and out.
It still perplexes me, which is why I include it on my list. It is by a Russian band called Little Big. According to Wikipedia:
On 26 January 2019, the music video won the category “Hype of the year” of the Ketnet award “Het Gala van de Gouden K’s 2018”, which took place in Belgium The song was also nominated for the “ZD Awards-2018” for “Trends of the Year” and “Hype of the Year”, which were presented on 28 February 2019. On 16 February 2019, the music video was awarded the “Chart’s Dozen” prize for “Best video”. On 10 April of the same year, the video was nominated for the awards for “Best video” and “Best Song in a Foreign Language” at the Muz-TV 2019 awards.
So, it is an award winning song that went viral. Little Big challenged fans to post their own Skibidi dance videos, which they called the “Skibidi Challenge”. I would imagine if I walked into work like this, they’d call and have me committed!
Skibidi
When I found my wife, I knew I had found my soulmate. The next song says, no matter what life throws at you and whatever money worries you might have, you’ll be fine if you have the right person by your side. It also is a great reminder that life is short, so “Make It Sweet.”
The guys from Old Dominion say writing it came easy, “…t he words just came tumbling out.” The next thing they knew, they had recorded “Make It Sweet.”
“That [final] recording is probably the second time we’ve ever played that song,” lead singer Matthew Ramsey said in an interview with Billboard. “You can kind of hear the excitement and the energy we have for it right there, because we had just created it and said, ‘Okay, let’s record it.'”
Make It Sweet
The older I get, the older I feel. Some days it is just hard to get up in the morning. The I read the story of how the next song came about:
(From songfacts.com) Toby Keith wrote “Don’t Let the Old Man” for Clint Eastwood’s 2018 film The Mule and it featured in its trailer. He told Billboard that he was inspired to write the song after a conversation he had with the 88-year-old Eastwood while the two played golf.
When Eastwood told him he was about to start working on a new movie called The Mule, Keith asked him, “How do you do it, man?” Eastwood responded, “I just get up every morning and go out. And I don’t let the old man in.”
Keith immediately started writing around Eastwood’s “don’t let the old man in” line and what he knew about his character in the movie.
The day he recorded the demo for Eastwood, he was sick with a bad cold. “I gave it the best vocal I could that day, and I sent it off,” he recalled. “It’s a real raspy, sleepy, tired, sick vocal. I said, ‘Well now you’ve got a reference, and I’ll go back and put a vocal on it for you.'”
Eastwood liked the recording because Keith’s raspy delivery fit the movie. “He wanted it sick and tired and dark like that,” said Keith. Clint didn’t want Toby to change his vocal and used that version for the movie.
The song took on a personal meaning for Toby. He performed it at the 2023 People’s Choice Country Awards after being awarded the Country Icon award. The performance was his first time back on red carpets and television after his diagnosis of stomach cancer the previous year. Keith said he chose the ballad because it inspires those who’ve been touched by his cancer journey.
Don’t Let The Old Man In
Let’s wrap up the week’s list by moving into 2019 ….
2019
The next song was one I played on both the country station and the AC station. It was a nice crossover hit. Maren Morris wrote The Bones when she was getting ready to marry singer Ryan Hurd. It is “a story of a long-lasting partnership where the couple have been through many storms together.”
When the bones are good, the rest don’t matter Yeah, the paint could peel The glass could shatter Let it rain You and I remain the same The house don’t fall when the bones are good
When the song came out the two were already married. The video features clips of Morris and Hurd during their vacation in Hawaii in June 2019. The couple split in 2023.
“The Bones” hit #1 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and remained a big hit throughout lockdown. Morris said she feels it resonated as it’s more than just a love song.
“It’s kind of amounted to being this really medicinal cry for hope in a time where it’s a very unsteady and unpredictable time that we’re in right now,” she said. “I feel like the whole message of ‘if the bones are good the rest doesn’t matter’ has applied to this year of 2020 being a complete mess. A ton of fans had reached out and said, ‘This feels like a cry for the world right now. Like we’re in the homestretch of the hard times.’ So it graduated beyond earthly love to something broader.”
The Bones
The Jonas Brothers had broken up six years before, so it was a big surprise when they released Sucker in 2019. The song speaks of being a “sucker” for the love of a woman.
I’ve been dancing on top of cars and stumbling out of bars I follow you through the dark, can’t get enough
The song debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was their first ever #1 song. It was one that I not only played on the radio, but at some of the last few DJ jobs I did. It always made folks dance and I liked the sound of it.
It would go on to be the most-heard song on US radio in 2019 with 3.49 billion audience impressions. I guess I was a sucker for this song.
Sucker
You can thank Tik Tok for the next song. Old Town Road gained popularity as a result of memes on the social media platform, where users uploaded clips using snippets of the song, plus the hashtag #oldtownroad. Lil Nas X uploaded the song to TikTok himself, masterfully using the platform to launch the track.
On April 5, 2019, a remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was released and the song exploded, going to #1 on the Hot 100. It was one of the few songs that was so popular, I’d have to play it twice at dances to make the audience happy.
Personally, I disliked the song, as I felt it fell into that rap/country category. However, I did laugh at the 2020 Super Bowl commercial for Doritos. It featured Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott. They line up for a duel, and when Elliott says, “make your move,” Nas busts out a dance move, triggering a dance-off. Billy Ray Cyrus appears in the kicker, saying “I ain’t dancing.”
Old Town Road
The deaths of my grandparents devastated me. They were so important to me. So when I was at the country station and played the next song from Riley Green, it hit home. It’s about more than grandparents, though, it is about those great things in life that end a bit too soon.
I wish high school home teams never lost And backroad-drinking kids never got caught I wish the price of gas was low and cotton was high I wish honky-tonks didn’t have no closing time And I wish grandpas never died
It, like a few other songs on my list this week, was thought provoking.
I Wish Grandpa’s Never Died
So that wraps up this week. I know many of my readers are unfamiliar with songs after the 2010, so apologies to them. For those familiar with new stuff, what did I miss that was your favorite from 2018 and 2019? You can drop it in the comments.
Next week, believe it or not, we will wrap up the feature, or at least this aspect of it. Looking ahead, I was able to go through 2020-2025 and come up with a few tunes. That sort of tells you how I feel about the last 5 years of music. It will be a short list next week. I hope to see you then.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
I turned 35 in 2005. There was plenty going on in my personal life at this time. We were doing various therapies for my son, who had been diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum. I had settled into my position at 94-5 The Moose in Saginaw as their afternoon guy and music director. I was certainly loving that. And at some point during the year, my mother’s cancer returned.
At the time, My Space was pretty popular. I was blogging a lot on there. Somewhere, I have a Word document with every one of those blogs. I had to contact them to get them. I had stopped posting there after joining Facebook, and at some point they moved content. I was thankful to get those blogs as they covered the time leading up to my wedding, the birth of my sons and the death of my mom.
I posted a lot about new songs we were playing on the radio, too. A few of them make this list. Let’s head into 2005:
The legendary Ray Charles passed away in 2004, but before he did, he recorded an amazing duets album. Genius Loves Company was the best selling recording of Charles’ more than 50-year career. It was a collection of duets with Norah Jones, Natalie Cole, Elton John, B.B. King, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall, Michael McDonald, Johnny Mathis, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor.
The album entered the Top 10 on the US album chart more than 40 years after Charles’ previous appearance on that same chart. This broke the record held by another act who also made his comeback with a duets album. In 1993 Frank Sinatra’s Duets reached the Top Ten 25 years after his previous Top 10 album.
Here We Go Again was a song that Ray had recorded in 1967. Then in 2004 he re-recorded this as a duet with Norah Jones for Genius Loves Company. She recalled collaborating with Charles on this song in a 2010 interview with Billboard magazine:
“I got a call from Ray asking if I’d be interested in singing on this duets record. I got on the next plane and I brought my mom. We went to his studio and did it live with the band. I sang it right next to Ray, watching his mouth for the phrasing. He was very sweet and put me at ease, which was great because I was petrified walking in there.”
This song won Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration in 2005 eight months after Charles passed away. In addition Genius Loves Company was awarded Album of the Year among six other awards, as the American music industry paid lavish tribute to him.
Unlike Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson, Ray Charles’ voice is as strong as ever on this recording. I felt Sinatra’s voice was weak on his duets albums. Willie is still putting out albums and at times he sounds like he’s just speaking the lyrics. Ray, however, sounds fantastic. I love the blending of these two voices.
Here We Go Again
The next song is an example of a song that I first heard in a polka. You read that right – a polka. Weird Al Yankovic has done quite a few polka medleys on his albums. The medley usually contains a verse or chorus from a pop song done as a polka. When I first heard Beverly Hills by Weezer on the radio, I found I liked it.
Weezer lead singer (Rivers Cuomo) explained in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that this song is about how he could live in Beverly Hills, but he wouldn’t fit in. “I could live in Beverly Hills, sure,” he says, meaning he could afford it easily. “But I couldn’t belong there.'”
Songfacts explains:
The song comes off as satire, but that wasn’t what Rivers Cuomo had in mind when he wrote it. “I was at the opening of the new Hollywood Bowl and I flipped through the program and I saw a picture of Wilson Phillips,” he said. “And for some reason I just thought how nice it would be to marry, like, an ‘established’ celebrity and live in Beverly Hills and be part of that world. And it was a totally sincere desire. And then I wrote that song, ‘Beverly Hills.’ For some reason, by the time it came out and the video came out, it got twisted around into something that seemed sarcastic. But originally it wasn’t meant to be sarcastic at all.”
The music video was shot at the Playboy mansion. It included appearances by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and some of the Playboy bunnies. Two of those bunnies were Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt.
Beverly Hills
When I was music director at the Moose, I spoke with a lot of record people. One of the industry folks knew I loved music from the Rat Pack. She asked me if I had heard of Michael Buble’. I hadn’t. She sent me some MP3’s of his music and I was hooked.
The song could have been sung by just about any artist who tours. The lyrics sound as if they could be autobiographical. It is sung by someone who spends a lot of time on the road with great success. With that success, there is sacrifice. He is missing his home, particularly the woman he loves.
Despite the fact that Home only reached #72 on the Hot 100 chart, it was a breakthrough song for him. The song hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary survey in July 2005. Three years later Blake Shelton reached #1 on the Country chart with his cover of Bublé’s hit.
Bublé and Blake Shelton teamed up in 2012 to record a holiday version of this song for Shelton’s, Cheers, It’s Christmas album. The collaboration happened after Shelton sent Bublé an email saying he hoped to record a yuletide-themed rendering of the tune. “I had the idea of doing a Christmas version of ‘Home,'” he said.
This was the song that proved to folks that Michael was more than a cover artist. His original songs are just as good as the standards he records. He is also more than just a Christmas artist. It bugs me that people pigeon hole him and label him like that. He’s one of my favorites.
Home
My on air name was “Keith Allen.” As a music director, I got to hear all the new music before it went on the air. I popped Play Something Country by Brooks and Dunn in the CD player and loved it. On my first listen, I thought they said my name – Keith Allen. I suppose, in a way, they did. But the lyrics refer to Toby Keith and Alan Jackson:
Said, I’m a whiskey drinking, cowboy chasing, hell of a time I like Kenny, Keith, Alan and Patsy Cline.
I have to tell you my favorite story about this song. When my program director and I first heard this, we said, “That’s a number one song!” We told our consultant that we wanted to add it. He said he didn’t feel like it was a hit. We were both shocked. We both told him that we felt it would be number one. He fought us.
He fought us for a few weeks on this one. He finally said that if we really felt it was a hit, we should add it. We wound up making a wager. I told him that if it didn’t go to number one, we’d buy him dinner. He said if it did hit number one, he would buy US dinner. The week it hit number one, he called us for our weekly music call. When we answered we started giving him restaurants we could go to!
His issue with the song? The “wolf-like” howl of the chorus.
Play Something Country
The next song is one that everyone jokes about on October 1st every year. “Someone needs to go wake up the guy from Green Day!”
This song reminds me of Fastball’s The Way. I say that because it starts with a simple acoustic guitar behind lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. Then the song kicks in with drums and the rest of the instrumentation. I love the sound of that.
Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about his father, who died of cancer on September 1, 1982. At his father’s funeral, Billie cried, ran home and locked himself in his room. When his mother got home she knocked on the door to Billie’s room. Billie simply said, “Wake me up when September ends,” hence the title.
“My father died in September of ’82, and I purposely, up until that point, never went there,” Armstrong said in an interview. “I think really what I was doing was processing that loss that I had with this person that I never really knew. So I wrote that song for my father and about that loss and how 20 years had passed. I remember right after I wrote it, I felt this huge weight off my shoulders.”
Wake Me Up When September Ends
Another country newcomer makes my list this week. I have actually written about him, and the song. Here is that blog:
The next song is one of the slowest chart climbers in history. It was on the American Hot 100 chart for 23 weeks before it entered the Top 40. KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” was inspired by another artist, Patti Smith. Tunstall said, “The inspiration for the song was Robert Mapplethorpe’s photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of her album Horses. I was staring at it one day thinking it was incredible. It’s everything I love about music – mysterious, inviting, frightening.”
Suddenly I see This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see Why the hell it means so much to me
“The chorus was me thinking, ‘that’s what I want to be,'” Tunstall told The Guardian. “Not a famous pop star with lots of money, but like this woman who’s living her life as an artist. I’d been trying for more than 10 years to be a professional musician. I was just exhausted from trying to persuade other people I was good enough.”
I remember hearing this song shortly after realizing that my first marriage was over. After all I learned and discovered through therapy, the title spoke to me. Suddenly, I saw just what was going on and I realized that I couldn’t do it anymore.
Suddenly I See
There were some really good country songs around this time. There were many new artists and some really distinct sounds that were on the radio. I was impressed with Josh Turner from the first time I heard him. I couldn’t believe the tone of his low voice.
Your Man is a song that I wish I could have written. Here is a guy who has been thinking about his woman all day long. He tells her to lock the door, turn the lights down low, and play some music.
I’ve been thinking about this all day long Never felt a feeling quite this strong I can’t believe how much it turns me on Just to be your man
That’s LOVE right there!!
I love the entire feel of this song. It’s the perfect song to “sway” to.
Your Man
As the “Nostalgic Italian,” I think it is safe to say that I believe in the power of a photograph. The memories that can come from looking at an old picture just amazes me. My Friday Photo Flashback is always fun to do. I think that is because of the stuff that comes to mind with those old pictures.
I know there are plenty of people who hate Nickelback. However, Photograph is a song that I can relate to in so many ways. (From songfacts): This song is about reviewing the memories (missed and forgotten) from the band’s childhood in Hanna, Alberta. The lyrics are a chronicle of real events and personal landmarks lead singer Chad Kroeger recalled as he wrote it.
“It’s just nostalgia, growing up in a small town, and you can’t go back to your childhood. Saying goodbye to friends that you’ve drifted away from, where you grew up, where you went to school, who you hung out with and the dumb stuff you used to do as a kid, the first love – all of those things. Everyone has one or two of those memories that they are fond of, so this song is really just the bridge for all that.”
Someone once said, “If you don’t think photos are important, wait until they are all you have left.” I couldn’t agree more.
The photograph Kroeger is holding in the video is the one that inspired the song: It’s a shot of him and their producer, Joey Moi, at a New Year’s Eve party.
Photograph
We wrap up 2005 with a One Hit Wonder. Defining a “one hit wonder” isn’t really easy. Most feel it is when the artist fails to have their follow up released crack the Top 25. There are certainly many songs that fit into that category.
Daniel Powter’s album was released in America in 2006. Bad Day was released in the UK in 2005. In the fifth season of Americal Idol, the song was played over a video montage of the contestant that was being sent home that week. This helped the song gain popularity.
Powter is from British Columbia who later moved to Los Angeles. “Bad Day” was his first single released on a major label (Warner Bros.), and his only hit. He later described it as “a blessing and a curse.” Powter said:
“I was touring the world and performing for thousands of people, but I felt like the song was starting to define me. I actually found myself getting almost angry about it.”
This was the top-selling digital download of 2006. This was the star of people prefer downloading songs to buying CDs. It was part of a shift toward digital distribution of individual songs. In America, the album sold 500,000, but the single was digitally downloaded over 3 million times!
My mom was doing chemotherapy and radiation for her breast cancer at this time. She found the song to be inspiring. It basically says that even if you have a bad day once in a while, things will get better. My mom always tried to have a positive outlook. She battled cancer for 10 years and by this point she was tired.
My mom had the gift of gab. She was always on the phone. She assigned Bad Day to be the ringtone for her cell phone. I believe it was on there until she passed away. When I hear this song, I am taken back to those final weeks of her life.
Bad Day
What song from 2005 did I miss that was your favorite? Drop it in the comments.
Next week, we’ll focus on 2006. On my list is a song about a steeplechase runner, a song that became a hit because of Grey’s Anatomy, and a song that was a hit on the Adult Contemporary Chart and the Country charts. It also has a great Drifter’s cover song, one that took on a whole new meaning for me when my daughter was born, and a creative way to insinuate profanity without actually using it.
Thanks for reading and for listening! See you next week.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
This will post on January 1, 2025, so let me start off by saying Happy New Year! I am sure that I will be posting something of a New Year’s Wish as well today.
Off to the side of my 2003 list I wrote, “Difficult year!” This could mean that it was difficult to pick ten songs. It could also mean that it was difficult to narrow the list down to ten songs. With my life, it could mean that 2003 was a difficult year personally. I’m not sure. I know that as I got deeper into the 2000’s, there were fewer songs that I liked. Maybe that is it?
Anyway, let’s drift into 2003:
Drift Away was a top 5 hit for Dobie Gray in 1973. In 2002, Gray recorded this as a duet with Uncle Kracker. When the song reached the Billboard top 10 in 2003, 30 years later, it broke a record. Dobie broke the record for the biggest gap between top US top 10 appearances and held that record for 17 years.
How did Uncle Kracker come to record it? You can thank a radio DJ for that. Songfacts explains:
“Although Uncle Kracker liked this song, he only performed it out of necessity at first. He was making the rounds on the morning radio shows to promote his solo debut, Double Wide (2000), which was mostly rap-rock tracks except for the mellow hit single “Follow Me.” Because he was expected to perform a few songs during his appearance, he needed something else to sing in the same vein, and the DJ Scott Shannon suggested the Dobie Gray tune.“
Kracker said, “If it wasn’t for him, that song would have never gotten cut, he pretty much put the bug in my ear for that.”
I like the fact that the cover included the original singer. People liked it, too. It was #1 for 28 weeks in 2003-04 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It broke the record for the longest run atop the tally and held the record for 15 years.
Drift Away
I had my first child in 2002. Over that first year, it was amazing to see the changes in him. I never really understood how fast time flies, until having children.
I was working in country radio in 2003 and I remember hearing Then They Do for the first time. I knew that it would be a huge hit because any parent could relate to the lyrics. They are delivered perfectly by Trace Adkins.
The song begins and describes a typical morning where the singer’s children are causing trouble on the way to school. Naturally, he thinks things will be easier when the children grow up. In time, the children go off to college and get married. It is then that the parents realize that they have more time to themselves now. Their children have accomplished their dreams, but their house and lives feel a lot emptier nonetheless.
It’s sort of a “be careful what you wish for” kind of thing. Be present and enjoy the memories.
Then They Do
The next song is one that I really liked. I don’t necessarily pray to angels when I am down or when I am hurting, but I do pray. I pray to God and ask Him to give me guidance or comfort. I did an in depth study for Sunday School at our church about angels once. That is why I don’t pray to them.
That being said, I do understand that in certain situations, people will often pray. Some, pray to angels. I think in essence, they pray to heaven for help. That’s kind of what I got from Train’s Pat Monahan’s inspiration for the song.
From Songfacts:
The song was inspired by something his therapist, Judy Bell, told him. Monahan told Buzzfeed, she said: “Just remember that we are made up of angels and traitors, and the angel is the one that says, ‘You’re beautiful and you can do anything you want,’ and the traitor is the one that says, ‘You’re ugly and you can’t get anything right.'”
“That song just came from that conversation of, if we all called our angels, what a cool life this would be for all of us,” he said.
The song went to number one on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Calling All Angels
I have always loved Willie Nelson. Some of his duets are just fantastic. I loved Pancho and Lefty with Merle Haggard. I loved To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before and Spanish Eyes with Julio Iglesias. I loved Seven Spanish Angels with Ray Charles. Last week, I could have included Mendocino County Line, his duet with Lee Ann Womack. When he did his duet with Toby Keith, it was a monster country hit.
Toby posted the story behind Beer For My Horses on his website:
“When I was a kid I worked for a rodeo company,” says Toby. “The old timers who worked the stock and stuff in the back would carry a pint of whiskey in their pocket – they were just old cowboys. They would pull it out and say, ‘Here’s to me, here’s to you, we got screwed, so screw you, here’s to me.’ They always had some little toast. One was to hold up the bottle for a drink and say, ‘Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.’ I kept that in my head a long time thinking I’d write it some day.“
“We did finally, trying to say that maybe it’s time that justice gets back into the judicial system. The big posse goes out and catches the bad guys and everybody comes back to lick their wounds, remember the ones they lost and celebrate with the ones that made it back. You raise your glass and say, ‘Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses, bartender.’ One of those conceptual deals. Soon as we got done writing it I thought man, it’d be cool if we could talk Willie Nelson into singing the Texas verse on that. Obviously he went for it and I think it’s the biggest multi-week #1 either of us ever had.“
In 2008, Toby and Willie starred with Rodney Carrington in the movie of the same name.
Beer For My Horses
The next song was a top five hit for 3 Doors Down. Lead singer, Brad Arnold told Songfacts:
“The song’s just about being away from someone, or missing them,” he clarifies. “And it really doesn’t matter if you’re here without them for all day or all month. It’s just kind of about the lonely and missing of somebody, but people kind of take that sort of as a little bit of a sad song. And in a way, I kind of meant it as a happy song. And the reason being because it’s talking about being here without you, but she’s still with me in my dreams. ‘And tonight, it’s only you and me,’ so the song was really just about that dream. And being in a state of peace, because you’ve got that person there with you in your sleep. And in that way I kind of meant for it to be a little bit of a happy song.”
The song means a lot to many military personnel. Especially those who find themselves away from their loved ones with their lives in danger. At the same time, many think about someone who has passed away and that miss them. However you interpret it, it really is a great song.
Here Without You
Josh Turner is one of the nicest singers I’ve ever had the chance to meet. His voice can rattle things hanging on a wall it is so deep. I remember when his first single (Long Black Train) hit my desk. Personally, I loved it. I got it. I understood it. However, it had a Christian theme to it and I wondered how the listeners would like it.
I love hearing him tell the story of how the song came about. He told AOL Music:
“‘Long Black Train’ was inspired by a vision that I had of a long, black train running down this track way out in the middle of nowhere. I could see people standing out to the sides of this track watching this train go by. As I was walking, experiencing this vision, I kept asking myself, ‘What does this vision mean and what is this train?’ It dawned on me that this train was a physical metaphor for temptation. These people are caught up in the decision of whether or not to go on this train. And this came about in a time of my life where I was trying to figure out who I was as an artist and as a person… I was trying to learn how to deal with the freedom that I had away from home for the first time. ‘Long Black Train,’ the song and the album, are very special to me. It was just one of those things that I felt like God gave to me for a purpose, and I’ve been out here promoting that purpose.”
He wrote the song after listening to some old Hank Williams Sr. songs. He was a college senior. He said he started strumming the guitar and the verses came to him. He never had any intention of releasing the song and noted that when he wrote it, “I didn’t even have a record contract yet!”
Long Black Train
Next is song that has been covered a few times. The First Cut is the Deepest was written by Cat Stevens. He did a demo of the song in 1965. In 1967, it was a hit for P.P. Arnold in Britain reaching #18 in the charts.
In America, the first version to chart was by Keith Hampshire, who took it to #70 in 1973. Rod Stewart covered it in 1976, taking it to #21 US and #1 UK. Sheryl Crow released her version in 2003, which made #14 in the US and #37 in the UK.
Sheryl recorded it for her hits compilation, “The Very Best of Sheryl Crow.” It was one of her biggest radio hits. It also became her first solo top-40 country hit following the success of her duet with Kid Rock (“Picture”)
First Cut Is The Deepest
Next, the third duet on my 2003 list. This was another one of those songs that after hearing it, I knew it would be a hit. How could it NOT be with Jimmy Buffett on it?
The song came about when writer Don Rollins had with the line “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” It was written for another artist whose album wanted a Jimmy Buffett vibe to it. The artist passed on the song and eventually it came to Alan Jackson. Rollins explains,
“I got the call that it was on hold for Alan, which I thought was strange, because if you hear the demo it’s very island-ly. There are acoustic guitars and steel drum samples, very much Buffett. The idea that someone as country as Alan Jackson might be interested in that song never even occurred to me. Then I got wind that he was wanting to do a duet with Buffett, and it made a little bit more sense at that point.”
This song spent eight weeks at #1 on the Country charts, and won the 2003 Grammy for Best Country Song. It was the first #1 song on the Country chart for Jimmy Buffett.
It’s Five O’clock Somewhere
Last week I picked a remix of Elvis Presley’s A Little Less Conversation. In 2002, the remix had worldwide success. Because of that English record producer Paul Oakenfold took another Elvis song and did a remix of it. This time it was Rubberneckin’.
Rubberneckin’ was a song that Elvis sang in the movie A Change of Habit. It was released as the B-side of Don’t Cry Daddy. It was a top ten hit for him.
The remix only reached number 94 on the Hot 100 chart in the US, but it was big elsewhere. It peaked at number two in Canada, and number three in Australia. It also reached the top 10 in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
Some folks dislike these remixes. I can see where a bad remix would make me feel that way. I really thought these two Elvis remixes were great. I was loving how many people danced to them at parties.
Rubberneckin’
The final song of 2003 is probably the most bizarre. It just sticks out, and the band knew this! I’m talking about I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness. This was a song that was brought to my attention by my ex. I had never heard it before, but one time I was asked to play it at a party and the crowd went crazy!
From Songfacts:
The British magazine Classic Rock named this as their Greatest Rock Song of the ’00s. The band’s frontman Justin Hawkins commented: “All The Darkness ever tried to do was bring a little joy into the glorious realm of rock, but ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ crossed over big time and changed our lives forever. To have been awarded ‘Song Of The Decade’ is overwhelming and I’m very grateful to Classic Rock for everything.”
The band’s former guitarist, Dan Hawkins, told Classic Rock the story of the song: “‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ was such an important song for The Darkness, but when we wrote it I really wasn’t sure about it. The chorus is so stupidly catchy, I thought people were just gonna take it as a complete joke! Right from the start, this song stuck out like a sore thumb.
We started with the riff, which Justin came up with. It sounded really great right away. But when he sang the chorus for the first time, I just said, ‘No, you can’t do that – it sounds ridiculous!’ I really thought people would just laugh at us when they heard it. So for the rest of the song, I tried to make it sound cool, more ‘rock.’ The rest of the song is all in minor key.“
Songfacts also presents this very funny review:
The New York Times wrote that this song “sticks to the listener like hair gel.”
I Believe in a Thing Called Love
So there you have it. Did I miss one of your favorites from 2003? Make sure to tell me about it in the comments.
Next week, I’ll present my list from 2004. The list include one of the funniest group names to say on the radio, a monster debut song, movie music, a dance craze that is still going strong, and a song that still brings me to tears.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
This particular year is posting on Christmas Day. I wasn’t sure about skipping it or moving it to another day, so here it is. That being said, Merry Christmas to you and yours!
In 2002, I turned 32 years old. I also became a father for the first time. It was a year of change to be sure. I was also a year of struggle, as I would be let go from my radio job shortly after my son was born. I was able to find another radio job, but the rate of pay was so much lower that I would have been better off on unemployment.
Music has always been a way for me to get through tough times. Here are my favorites from 2002:
In February of 2002, the world was introduced to the amazing Norah Jones. The album was Come Away With Me and it was something that really stood out amongst the rest of what was going on musically at the time.
According to Songfacts.com, Norah started performing this song with Jesse Harris (the write of the song) after moving to New York City. Harris “thought it was a good fit for a female voice. Jones changed the key to fit her voice, added a drum beat, then recorded a demo of the song with Harris in October 2000. That demo got the attention of the jazz label Blue Note, which signed Jones and sent her to the studio to record with a group of session musicians. The results were too convoluted, so Jones was assigned to a different producer, Arif Mardin, who had worked with many famous artists, including Aretha Franklin. He was brought in to capture Jones’ distinctive sound, which he did by keeping the original demo take and adding some guitar and a vocal harmony, making Jones harmonize with herself.”
Jesse Harris played guitar on the original demo, which ended up being used on the final recording. He almost stopped the take because he didn’t like the mix in his headphones. He kept going and was glad he did, since that was the keeper. Jones and her band were willing to do another take, but the engineer, Jay Newland, thought it was perfect and wouldn’t let them.
Songfacts says, “Grammy voters were enamored with Jones, nominating her in five categories, with “Don’t Know Why” up for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. After the nominations were announced, the album went to #1 in America, claiming the top spot on January 25, 2003, 11 months after it was released.
Jones cleaned up at the Grammys, winning all five awards she was nominated for, with Come Away With Me earning Album of the Year. Jones also won Best New Artist and performed “Don’t Know Why” on the show.”
It wasn’t long after this that I was watching Sesame Street with my son. Norah sang this with altered lyrics about the letter “Y.”
I Don’t Know Why
The Come Away With Me album is a rare massive seller with no big hits. The only song to land in the Hot 100 was “Don’t Know Why,” which made #30. “Come Away with Me” was the third single, released in December 2002 after the album had been out for nine months. By this time, it has already sold millions of copies, but many were just discovering it.
I love that these two songs really show off the unique voice of Norah Jones.
Come Away With Me
I don’t recall the first time I heard A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton. It is entirely possible that it was years after it was released. I probably heard it for the first time when I was at the Adult Contemporary station I was working for.
I just know that I really liked it. I loved the melody and her voice. I had never seen the video before I watched it to post here.
Vanessa wrote the lyrics after coming up with the song’s piano riff in the summer of 1998 at her parents’ house in Philadelphia. She revealed in a documentary for Vice that she penned the words about a Juilliard student she had a crush on while studying at the School of American Ballet. However, her love was unrequited. “I would never talk to this person,” Carlton said. “I was very shy. I was like, ‘There’s just no way on God’s creation that this would ever happen.'”
She refused to reveal the subject’s name to Vice because he’s a “famous actor” now, apparently.
The song was used in the Shawn and Marlon Wayans movie “White Chicks.” When asked about the song being in the movie, Vanessa said, “I thought it was hilarious. Those guys are really nice, too. I ran into them backstage or something, and they asked me if they could use it. They’re like fans, they’re so cute. But the scene that was in was hilarious.”
A Thousand Miles
Brad Paisley was just coming on the scene when our station brought him to town for a show. He was friendly and a bit shy. When he hit the stage, he was a marvel to watch. I’d watched a lot of people play guitar, but I was in awe of his playing!
His second album, Part II, was released in 2001. One of the songs from it showcases Brad’s playful lyrics and sense of humor. I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishing Song) is about a wife who gives her man an ultimatum. He needs to pick between fishing and her. I would imagine this could be re-written as The Golf Song or The Hunting Song, too.
The video is something that takes the song up a notch. Songfacts, quotes Brad:
“I’ve always written with a little humor. Even my saddest songs have a little smile to them,” Paisley recalled in his spotlight interview during the 2018 Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. “So for the [‘I’m Gonna Miss Her’] music video, I pitched this whole idea: I said, ‘I’m gonna do a video that’s gonna take the song to whole other places.’ I was going to get Dan Patrick, who was at ESPN at the time, and have him officiate a fishing tournament. And then Jimmy Dickens was gonna be my fishing buddy. Then, we were going to end up on The Jerry Springer Show. The wives were going to be upset with us, throwing chairs and stuff. [The guy from the label] said, ‘Can you really make this happen?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.'”
“I walked out of that meeting,” Paisley added, “called my agent and said, ‘I really, really need Dan Patrick’s number.'”
His real life wife, Kimberly Williams, also appears in the video.
I’m Gonna Miss Her
The next song is one that I can relate to quite well. I have been very lucky to still have friends from elementary school (as well as middle and high school). Those elementary school friendships that last are treasures. I have written here many times about my best friend, Jeff, who I have known since second grade.
“We’re Going To Be Friends” by the White Stripes was released on the band’s third album, White Blood Cells. At that time, they were little known outside of their Detroit stomping grounds and in the UK, where they got a lot of love from the music press. But thanks to a surprise hit movie, they gained lots of recognition and fans.
This song plays at the beginning of the 2004 movie Napoleon Dynamite, where it’s used under a clever opening sequence where the credits appear on various everyday objects (lip balm, bag lunch). The film, of course, was a surprise hit and earned a great deal of exposure for the song. The main character, Napoleon, is a strong-willed, talented, quirky type with big ideas. Kinda like the White Stripes frontman, Jack White.
The movie was my first exposure to the song. It led me to dig deeper into their musical catalog.
We’re Going To Be Friends
I have always loved a song that has a Spanish feel to it. There is something about the sound of a Spanish guitar that I really dig. When I first heard My Heart is Lost to You by Brooks and Dunn, I was impressed on many levels. The thing that stuck out most was just how good Ronnie Dunn’s voice fit this type of song.
It only went to #5 on the country charts, and faded away afterward. You rarely hear it on the radio today. It is one of the songs that really got me through a rough patch. It always made me feel good when I heard it.
My Heart Is Lost To You
The 9/11 attacks were still very fresh in our minds in 2002. Patriotism was still on the rise, too. The next song became a sort of anthem for the country, but almost was not released.
Toby Keith wrote Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He said he wrote the song based on what he thought his father’s thoughts on the terrorist attacks would have been. Keith’s father was a veteran and a patriot.
He told the CBS show 60 Minutes that he wrote this song in just 20 minutes, a week after 9/11. His intention was to play it for troops on USO tours, but not to be part of a commercial release. However, after playing it for Pentagon brass in Washington, the Marine Corps commandant said, according to Keith: “You have to release it. You can serve your country in other ways besides suiting up in combat.”
This was one of many country songs that were written and released after 9/11.
Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue
Elvis Presley had been dead 25 years in 2002, yet, here he is on my list!
Songfacts explains: Mac Davis and Billy Strange wrote A Little Less Conversation for the 1968 Elvis movie Live A Little, Love A Little, which was one of Presley’s last. Davis wrote the original version for Aretha Franklin, but when Billy Strange, who was handling music for the film, approached Davis about contributing a song, he realized that “A Little Less Conversation” fit the scene perfectly, so he reworked it with Strange and Elvis sang it for the film.
This was a fairly obscure Elvis song, peaking at a very un-Kingly #69 in America when it was released in 1968. But when it was remixed and released as a single in 2002, this new version went to #1 in the UK, giving Elvis 18 #1 hits there, the most of any artist. Previously, he was tied with The Beatles at 17. The remix topped the charts in several other countries as well, but only reached #50 in the US.
I do remember the first time I heard this. I was blown away. I thought it sounded modern and fresh. It was great to hear his vocals preserved and this take on the song. I was surprised when high school kids were asking for it at dances, too. They loved it and so did I.
A Little Less Conversation
The band Weezer has made some fantastic and memorable music videos. The next one is no exception.
Maladroit was Weezer’s fourth album. Keep Fishin’ was the second song released from the album. It received some high praise from critics. The AV Club stated: “It’s the kind of infectious, impeccably crafted power-pop rocker Cuomo can probably bang out in his sleep”.
The video is just a joy to watch, especially for folks like me who grew up watching The Muppet Show. The music video features Weezer as guests on The Muppet Show as drummer Patrick Wilson is held captive by none other than Miss Piggy. As noted in the Weezer Video Capture Device DVD, it marks the acting debut for the band members in a music video.
The video premiered on July 14, 2002, on MTV2. It was accompanied by a half-hour special showcasing behind-the-scenes footage from the video’s shoot.
Despite the Muppet Show wrapping in 1979 after five seasons on the air, I can see them having more fun with Weezer and other artists if it were still airing. (The new version from a few years ago took it to a more adult level with themes that I felt were not “Muppet-ish”)
Keep Fishing
Speaking of growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, the next song was like a time capsule. It tossed in many things that I remembered, and many others did, too. It was a crossover hit for Mark Wills called 19 Something.
The song begins with singer’s reminiscence of his formative years, the 1970s and 1980s. In the first verse and chorus, various 1970s-related bits of pop culture are referenced, such as Farrah Fawcett, eight track tapes, and Stretch Armstrong. The first verse also mentions the videogame Pac-man (“I had the Pac-Man pattern memorized.”). The first chorus begins with the line “It was 1970-somethin’ / In the world that I grew up in.” Verse two, similarly, references 1980s pop culture, such as the Rubik’s Cube, a black Pontiac Trans Am, and MTV. The second chorus likewise begins with “It was 1980-somethin’.” In the song’s bridge, the singer then expresses his desire to escape to his childhood years: “Now I’ve got a mortgage and an SUV / All this responsibility makes me wish sometimes / That it was 1980-somethin’.“
It was released as a single from Mark Wills’ Greatest Hits CD. It went to number one on the Country Charts and peaked at number twenty-three on the Hot 100 charts.
19 Something
The final song on my list is a cover of a Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi. The song was a hit for her in 1970. She said in an interview: “I wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart… this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song.”
The Counting Crows covered the song as an afterthought and originally for a hidden track on their 2002 album Hard Candy. It was only released as a single after Vanessa Carlton’s back-up vocals were added for a new version that featured on the soundtrack to the 2003 movie Two Weeks Notice. Their version became the band’s only Top 20 single in the UK, peaking at #13. In the US it reached #42.
If I had to choose between the original and the cover version, I’d choose the original. I don’t think this is a bad cover, but many did. It appears on a few “worst cover song” lists.
I think the song itself is why it is on my list, I love the song. This version doesn’t touch the original, but it did introduce younger folks to the song.
Big Yellow Taxi
Did I leave off one of your favorites from 2002? If so, mention it in the comments.
Next week, we kick off the New Year with 2003. Next to my list for ’03, I wrote “difficult year.” Whether that means that it was hard to narrow my list down to 10 songs or that it was hard to find 10 songs, I don’t remember. I can tell you it features a couple covers songs, a song every parent can relate to, and we learn what beverage equestrians give to their horses.
I was sad to wake up today to see that Toby Keith lost his battle with cancer. He was only 62. He was one of those country artists who had continued success while others who came up around the same time faded from the radio. He always seemed to be able to come out with the right song (even the ones I didn’t care for).
Because of my years in country radio, I met him a couple times. The first time was at a Country Radio Seminar. This was a big conference with discussion panels, new artist shows, artist showcases and such. It was a such a cool experience.
One night I was standing in a huge room with a bunch of record and radio people. There may or may not have been some artist show going on in the background, I don’t recall. I had gone to the bar (one of the many throughout the hotel) and grabbed a drink. I remember turning around and Toby was standing right there in front of me. I introduced myself and he shook my hand. His hand engulfed mine! We talked about his music, our station and fishing. He was pleasant and humble and I remember him saying “let me know if I can ever do anything for you guys.”
I had the chance to do phone interviews with him a couple more times, but there was one time I will always remember. This probably happened at another Country Radio Seminar. I was in the bathroom and standing at the urinal. The door slammed open and in walks Hank Williams Jr, Toby Keith and Kid Rock. Hank walks up to my left, slaps me on the should and says hello as he uses the urinal next to me. Toby stands at the urinal to my right and Kid Rock is at the urinal next to Toby. I remember thinking, “What do I do in this situation?! I certainly can’t shake their hands!”
The talk of an upcoming tour made it sound like Toby was getting better, but as I have learned of the years – with cancer, you never know. He spoke of his faith as his source of strength through the battle. In one interview I watched he said something about how people tend to lean on their faith in the bad times, and the health issues made him realize just how important faith was at ALL times. I agree.
In a recent appearance he sang a song called Don’t Let the Old Man In. I have a feeling it will get a lot of airplay in the days ahead.
Like many who have gone before him – he lives on through his music.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 